I think it was in my sophmore year of high school where I began to notice a change in myself. First it was in my writing. Everything had a negative, sinister undertone. Story ideas changed from fun adventure novels to stories about the broken and lost. This is also around the time The Unknown emerged. It would show itself in my poetry, in my short stories-hell, even in my relationships. My once cheerful, passionate, and expressive self was draped over by a constricting shadow. I was not the man I once was.

This was further highlighted after my nieces pointed out that I was “different”. They too had noticed a shift in myself. I would wave them off, attributing it to tiredness and maturity, I was still the same guy. I knew I wasn’t telling the truth.

Over the years, I’ve attempted to analyze what had caused the change in my personality, but no amount of church and relationship related trauma seemed to justify how different I had become. I had become increasingly passive, muted, nonexpressive. I hid so much of myself away from the world that I couldn’t even recognize myself in private.

Through this analysis, I hit another obstacle. While knowing where the root of my traumas lied was all well and fine, I was still without a resource to fix myself. I knew the who, what, when, and even the why in some cases, but where do you go from there? I’ve been wrestling with that question for years. So many years, in fact, that I don’t even remember the man I once was either. Many a time I try to think back to my younger years, the things that got me excited, the things that held my interest, the things that made me angry, the things that made me cry. Nothing comes back to me.

I think then that the only option for me is to completely reinvent myself. I know I don’t truly like myself how I am now, and I know that there were things I really liked about myself all those years ago. I’m at the crossroads of my past self and my true self. Without much reference, I find it hard to picture a version of myself that I would want to be like. I know I want to be more confident, more focused, determined and all, but I also want to tap into an almost child like joy and wonder for the world like I once had. I just don’t know what that would look like.

While I haven’t been as consistent with my posts, I hope with this blog that I would begin to figure that out. I believe I’m still at the beginning of whatever my journey is supposed to be, and at the beginning is often where you go through most of the resistence, so I’m hoping through some determination and willpower, I’ll come out the other end more like who I want to be. More like someone I can be proud of. My true self.